From the desk of Frank Kane: Food, fine art and fulcrums

Some reader feedback tells me there has been too much football in this notebook and more high-brow content is required, aimed at the sophisticated intellectuals who form the core of The National's business readership.

So this week, I present to you: art, and fine cuisine. (Surely they can't complain about that?)

The art consists of an impressive sculpture exhibition at Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). For the past few days I've noticed workmen busy around The Gate building fixing wires to walls and hauling extremely heavy looking objects up ladders. On Monday night, I saw the results, an exhibition that is interesting enough to lure you out of Caramel for a while, even into the summer sauna.

The presentation, entitled "Global Balance", consists of 25 figures dotted around the DIFC. They really are eye-catching: metallic figures representing circus performers juggling and balancing on the high wire.

It looks certain they will overbalance in the slightest breeze and come toppling down on to the concrete. But I'm told that the artist, the Polish sculptor Jerzy "Jotka" Kedziora, has carefully calculated the fulcrum of each piece and that it is impossible for them to capsize.

I'm not sure how appropriate those images - circus clowns, juggling, high-wires - are for the sponsor, Deutsche Bank, but the exhibition is certainly worth a look. Art always makes me hungry and thirsty, so I moved along to Emirates Towers for refreshment. There is quite a renaissance going on in the hotel and on the Boulevard that links it to the office tower, and I must say it is overdue.

Jumeirah Emirates Towers (JET) was always one of my favourite hotels in Dubai, consistently voted the best business hotel in the emirate. If you hung around the lobby for an hour or so you would run into valuable contacts, or witness deals being done in the glitzy steel and glass surroundings.

Maybe it was the financial crisis that knocked it out of kilter, but for the past 18 months or so JET has been a rather quieter, less bustling place. Businessmen and women still gather there, but the sense of urgency and excitement was lacking. Jumeirah has obviously decided to do something about that, with a programme of renovation and refurbishment in the hotel. The Rib Room restaurant has been completely refitted, and is once again elegant and busy, if still pricey.

But the main excitement is in the Boulevard, where all manner of change is under way.

The Boulevard is basically a very upmarket shopping mall, and I'm sure in pre-crisis days it did very well. But after October 2008, even the very wealthy had to think twice before dropping more than Dh40,000 (US$10,890) for a Cartier watch, and the Boulevard, too, became rather forlorn.

On Monday night it was in a minor frenzy of excitement. There are some obvious changes: the legendary Agency bar and restaurant, the first in Dubai to put on a weekly ladies' night, is sadly no more, having moved upstairs to take over the old JET hotel bar.

It has been replaced by the Boulevard Cafe, all framed football shirts and life-size pictures of Wayne Rooney. (OK, no more football). I was told this phase will only be short-term before it becomes an establishment called Alfie's. What's that all about?

The main frisson of anticipation is for the opening of The Ivy just across the way. For those aficionados of the London restaurant of the same name, this is a big event. The London eatery is one of the places to see and be seen in the city, and I've spent many an enjoyable hour or three there over lunch or dinner.

All the more enjoyable when somebody else was paying, which was usually the case. The table company of a leading business journalist is something very much sought after in the UK, and people are willing to pay, you know. It's one of those cultural things that has not travelled well to the Gulf.

Anyway, I hope the Dubai Ivy changes that. I had a sneak preview of the restaurant, and it's got the same feel as London, but on a rather grander scale, with gigantic chandeliers and more wide open spaces than the rather intimate London premises.

The menu looked very Ivy. I can't wait for asparagus in hollandaise sauce, and kedgeree. It opens officially tomorrow night.

fkane@thenational.ae